About a year ago, Alexa gained the ability to play podcasts from Spotify in the US. That capability is now also being made available in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, India, Austria, and Ireland. Once you have Alexa linked to Spotify, you’ll be able to say “Alexa, play [podcast name] podcast on Spotify” to start listening. Easy as that. Once the podcast episode is playing, you should be able to use the usual podcast commands to control playback.
Spotify, the streaming music service, and Hulu, the streaming TV service, have teamed up to offer a new joint subscription. For $12.99 per month, you get Spotify Premium, which costs $9.99 per month on its own, and Hulu’s limited commercial streaming plan, which costs $7.99 on its own. The joint plan, which saves you $5 a month over subscribing to the two services individually, is being offered and billed by Spotify. It’s currently only available to existing Spotify Premium subscribers, but it will be made available to everyone else this summer. When you sign up for the new joint plan, you’ll pay $0.99 to get 3 months of Hulu and then you’ll be charged $12.99 per month after the first 3 months have passed.
The Spotify app for the Fire TV has been disappointing ever since it was released in September 2014. That’s because it was nothing more than a companion app to their smartphone apps which acted as a receiver for your music stream. That changes this week because the Fire TV Spotify app has been updated to a full featured stand alone app. Even better is the app no longer requires a premium paid Spotify subscription.
Once you login to the app, you’ll be able to stream music from numerous playlists and categories directly through the Fire TV. Front and center in the app is a list of popular playlists. Scrolling right is an area for genres and moods. All the way on the far right lives a list of new releases. The app also has a “Your Music” section as well as search. The search feature breaks down results into songs, albums, and playlists. If you don’t have a premium account, you will hear the occasional commercial, but the free music selection is impressive. Exiting the app while music is playing will keep the music playing, even when you enter other apps, like games. Unfortunately, Spotify through Alexa on the Fire TV is still not available.
Amazon has just announced that you can now stream music from Spotify through the Amazon Echo. Unfortunately, Spotify streaming is not available through Alexa on the Fire TV like the other music streaming options. To stream Spotify through a Fire TV, you’ll have to stick to either the official Spotify app or the much better Emma for Spotify app. For Echo streaming, you will also need a Spotify Premium account, which is to be expected. Once you’ve linked your Spotify account through the Alexa app, simply add “…on Spotify” to any music request to stream from Spotify. The addition of Spotify to the Echo increases the available music sources to five, which include Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn, and iHeartRadio.
The official Spotify app for the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV stick is a bit of a let down. The app is useless without a smartphone or tablet sending it music. Cue Emma for Spotify, a brand new app just released for Fire TV devices. Emma is a stand-alone Spotify client capable of streaming Spotify music without the need of smartphone or tablet. The app focuses mostly on curated and personal playlists, but can also play individual songs. As with all Spotify clients, you’ll need a premium Spotify account to use the app.
After 2 months of teasing, Spotify is now officially available on the Amazon Fire TV. The app, released moments ago, is more of a Spotify receiver then a full fledged app. It relies on a smartphone or tablet to serve as a remote to control the Fire TV app. By itself, the Fire TV app is unusable. Using a smartphone or tablet, you select the song or playlist you wish to play and change the source to be the Fire TV. Spotify’s premium subscription service is required for the Fire TV app to function. Once a song is playing on the Fire TV Spotify app, the album art is displayed along with a trackbar showing the current position of the playing song. Using the Fire TV remote, you can pause/play the music, or skip to the next or previous song in the current playlist.
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